Jeanne
by hikachu
Summary: A sun-kissed valkyrja guided by the angel's voice.


In the end, she decides she should try to climb on the horse the way she did with trees back in the village (nobody, among the other children, was better at it than her, not even the boys or her older siblings), but horses don't have branches you can grasp to pull yourself up, and they will snort impatiently and move away if you don't know how to approach them.

Griffith watches in silence with quiet, almost warm amusement in his eyes, and beyond that, there is the implicit message that he's waiting because he knows she will make it. It's why he still won't reach out to help when she falls down for the second time.

His men are still trying to wrap their heads around the notion that he really means to let her join their band, this little girl who has just clumsily killed her first man and doesn't even know how to mount a horse. It's baffling, and sometimes it's hard not to laugh at her pathetic attempts, but they keep their mouths shut anyway, because Griffith's choices are always the right choices and it's not their place to criticize them.

When she does finally make it, each scrawny leg is on a different side of the saddle, and she doesn't seem to be aware that it's improper for a lady, starving plebeian or not; she doesn't seem to care that the ripped rag that is her skirt is hiked a bit too high on her thighs. When the horse starts moving, she does her best to keep her shoulders straight and not to lean back, against Griffith's chest.

He grins because this is no damsel in distress that he saved. He's found a little amazon.

"Casca," he tells her in a tone that sounds like it's meant for secrets. "That was much better than my first time mounting a horse: I was seven and I ended up dragging saddle, pouches, and everything else down with me—into a puddle of mud. It's a good thing the Count never found out it was me, or I probably wouldn't be telling you about it, today."

And Casca blinks, because she can't really believe it is true, that it really happened, that this person that seems above everyone and everything, above the whole world, could ever be so clumsy or act like a normal child, a normal human being—it's an illusion that will soon be broken in her eyes, even as it keeps holding the band together like glue, but for now she can believe in it, letting her heart soar high and light, laughing because she finally feels that her life is her own.

No more than two days later, Griffith wakes her at dawn, and, once, and just once, shows her how to hold a sword; the most basic moves to kill a man and protect yourself. Casca observes carefully and does her best to burn the scene into her memory, because she knows, after this, she'll be left to her own devices, to learn and exercise and keep up with the rest of the band like any other soldier.

This is, however, very different from her parents' indifference, from that lack of interest and affection dictated by hunger and desperation. This is because she's expected to prove her worth, that she belongs here, to create a path for herself, one that she can walk with her head held high. This is because Griffith believes in her, and she wants to make him proud.

Sometimes, Corkus or one of his men will try to pick a fight with her, and sometimes, Casca feels that she can't just let it go, that those idiots need a good lesson, and sometimes, it doesn't end the way she'd want it to, but she's thankful Griffith won't comment on the bruises at least.

Griffith's eyes seem to be always set on something far and too bright for her or anyone else to see, but he can, in fact, understand his men and their weaknesses, the things that would destroy their pride or inflate it. Casca wonders, if he can also see her hand tremble when she wants to reach out and close the distance between them and doesn't, because she already knows—Griffith doesn't need anyone that way; his heart was snatched away by a dream he saw who knows how long ago. She realizes this and wishes, perhaps selfishly, perhaps arrogantly, at least let me be his treasured sword.

Judeau clicks his tongue and says, "It's a pity, though," with a smile that looks a bit tired, on the morning he helps her cut off her hair. Casca shrugs and gives him a curt reply that makes him chuckle. A sword needs none of this, she thinks, and Judeau's heart breaks a little. He can see her heart reflected in her own eyes.

Eventually, after many battles and more or less petty fights, all the men that used to call Casca _sister_ to remind her she was just a woman, unfit for a mercenary's life, are still doing so, but out of respect and either affection or fear, or both.

And Casca leads them to victory, a sun-kissed valkyrja guided by the angel's voice.


End file.
